Experiencing Dance: From Student to Dance Artist, Second Edition, takes off where its previous edition—a best-selling high school text for students enrolled in dance classes—left off. Geared to students in dance II, III, and IV classes, this text places teachers in the role of facilitator and opens up a world of creativity and analytical thinking as students explore the art of dance.
Through Experiencing Dance, students will be able to do the following:
• Encounter dance through creating, performing, responding to, analyzing, connecting with, and understanding dance through its 45-plus lessons.
• Experience dance as performers, choreographers, and audience members.
• Learn about dance in historical and cultural contexts, in community settings, and as career options.
• Go through a complete and flexible high school curriculum that can be presented in one or more years of instruction.
• Meet state and national standards in dance education and learn from a pedagogically sound scope and sequence that allow them to address 21st-century learning goals.
• Use Spotlight and Did You Know? special elements that will enhance the learning experience and connect studio learning to the real world of dance.
Experiencing Dance will help students engage in movement experiences as they learn and apply dance concepts through written, oral, and media assignments. These assignments help them gain a perspective of dance as an art form and provide the content for students to develop interactive dance portfolios.
The text contains 15 chapters in five units. Each chapter offers at least three lessons, each containing the following material:
• Move It! introduces students, through a movement experience, to a lesson concept.
• Vocabulary provides definitions of key terms.
• Curtain Up offers background information to help students understand lesson topics and concepts.
• Take the Stage presents dance-related assignments for students to produce and share.
• Take a Bow engages students in response, evaluation, and revision activities to process their work and concepts presented in the chapter.
Each lesson includes Spotlight and Did You Know? special elements that help students extend their learning and deepen their understanding of historical and cultural facts and prominent dancers, dance companies, and professionals in careers related to dance.
Each chapter includes a chapter review quiz. Quizzes incorporate true-or-false, short-answer, and matching answer questions. Finally, each chapter ends with a capstone assignment.
Students will delve into major topics such as these:
• Identifying your movement potential as a dancer
• Understanding dance science and its application through studying basic anatomy and injury prevention in relation to dance training
• Developing proper warm-ups and cool-downs and integrating fitness principles and nutrition information into healthy dancing practices
• Expressing through various dance styles and forms the roles of the dancer, the historical and cultural heritage of the dance, andd the dance’s connections to community and society
• Developing and performing dance studies and choreography in a variety of styles and forms and then producing the dance using production elements for a variety of settings
• Preparing for a future as a dancer, choreographer, or a career that is otherwise connected to dance
• Advocating for dance in your community and beyond
The text is bolstered by web resources for both students and teachers. These resources enhance the students’ learning experience while enabling teachers to prepare for, conduct, and manage their classes.
The student web resource contains these features:
• Journaling prompts
• Extended learning activities
• Web search suggestions for further research
• Worksheets and assignments to either print out or complete online (via editable Word files)
• Interactive chapter review quizzes (these are completed online and students get immediate feedback)
• Video clips
• Vocabulary terms with and without definitions to aid in self-quizzing and review
The teacher web resource contains everything that is on the student web resource, plus the following:
• A printable full-color poster for the classroom
• PowerPoint presentations for each chapter
• Answer keys for worksheets and quizzes
• A full electronic version of the student textbook
In addition, Experiencing Dance is available in both print and interactive iBook versions. The iBook version has embedded chapter-opening and instructional video clips as well as interactive quizzes (in which students immediately receive feedback on their answers).
This updated text, with its solid instruction and comprehensive lessons, new resources, and extended learning experiences, will help students at levels II, III, and IV increase their understanding of, expertise in, and enjoyment of dance.
Helene Scheff, RDE, was a dance educator and administrator for 55 years in all sectors and venues, including K-12, higher education, and the private sector. She coauthored several dance books and conducted presentations at local, regional, national, and international conferences and seminars. Scheff was a member of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. In her leisure time she enjoyed viewing dance and theater and spending time with her family, including her 10 grandchildren and one great grandchild.
Helene Scheff passed away in 2023.
Marty Sprague is a dance educator with over 30 years of experience. She has taught all levels, from early childhood through higher education. Sprague teaches dance at the Juanita Sanchez Educational Complex High School in Providence, Rhode Island, and has been an associate professor at Brown University and an associate professor and clinical supervisor for Roger Williams University education department.
Sprague has been involved in program and curriculum development, professional development, policy development, and advocacy support for arts education in Rhode Island. Marty holds an MA in dance education from the Teachers College of Columbia University and a BFA in dance from Boston Conservatory. She was the founding artistic director of the Chance to Dance program. She has written and reviewed dance standards at the district, state, and national levels. Marty has been honored by Dance Teacher magazine as 2004 Dance Teacher of the Year, K-12 and by National Dance Education Organization as the 2005 Dance Educator of the Year, K-12. Marty is currently serving on the executive editorial board for NDEO’s Journal of Dance Education and for the Arts Education Policy Review.
She is coauthor, with Helene Scheff and Susan McGreevy-Nichols, of Building More Dances, the second edition of Building Dances, Experiencing Dance, Dance About Anything, and Exploring Dance Forms and Styles.
Susan McGreevy-Nichols is the executive director of the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO). She taught at Roger Williams Middle School in Providence, Rhode Island, from 1974 to 2002. She was the founder and director of the inner-city school's nationally recognized dance program in which more than 300 of the school's 900 students elected to participate. The program treated dance as a core subject; emphasized the creating, performing, and responding processes; and integrated the arts and other core subjects. She developed a cutting-edge reading comprehension program using text as inspiration for original choreography created by children. After retiring, she moved to California where she taught part-time at California State University/Dominguez Hills and Loyola Marymount University and was a teaching artist in schools in Los Angeles and Alameda Counties.
She is a founding member of the NDEO and a former treasurer and board member; she served as president before becoming the executive director. She also has served as president of the National Dance Association (NDA).
Susan has received numerous NDA presidential citations and an Eastern District Association (EDA) of the American Alliance of Health, Physical Education, and Dance (AAHPERD) Merit Award in Dance. In 1994 she was named Rhode Island's Dance Teacher of the Year, and in 1995 she was honored both as the NDA National Dance Teacher of the Year and as an EDA Outstanding Professional. She received AAHPERD's Honor Award in 2000.
Susan is the coauthor of five books: Building Dances (1995), Building More Dances (2001), Experiencing Dance (2004), Dance About Anything (2006), and Dance Forms and Styles (2010).
